Suleiman family. (Photo: Emil Salman)

King’s vigilante crew is poised to forcibly remove a Palestinian family, the Suleimans, from their East Jerusalem home. The family was recently cleared of an impending eviction notice from the government and King is hoping to re-instate the order, carrying it out himself.

Palestinians with eviction orders rarely receive injunctions. Typically, once a Palestinian house receives an eviction notice, the residents have about 30 days before they must vacate, which makes the Suleiman’s case extremely rare. But for Jewish Israelis, evictions stays are common and often applied to illegal outposts. For example, a few years ago when Hagit Ofran was describing her work with Peace Now’s settlement watch to me, she said most of the illegal outposts she had visited have multiple eviction (or demolition) orders, which were never implemented. Ofran also said some outposts have as many as eight written notices. A recent manifestation of this no-eviction-for-Israelis policy is found in the controversial settlement of Migron, home to some of the “price tag” hilltop youth. For nearly a decade, the outpost has been marked for eviction. Finally in 2011 Migron was temporarily evicted and demolition. But after the bulldozers left, settlers returned and re-built the camp. They now have a two year stays on the eviction order and support from a Knesset working group.

King thinks the Suleiman’s eviction was held off due to Netanyahu’s recent visit to the U.S.; the Suleimans were spared as a way to keep the prime minister’s visit scandal-free. And, he might be right.

But King is determined to remove the 18-person Palestinian family, including one pregnant woman, from their house. “I’ve got no problem. You want us to wait until she gives birth?” King said to Haaretz, continuing, “we’ll do it, but in the presence of a lawyer and a left-wing public figure as a witness. They keep wasting time and don’t give us answers.” And as one would imagine, the Suleimans are not cowering to King. “I told Aryeh King I wasn’t going to get out, they can kill us, but we won’t get out,” said Khaled Natcha. He continued, “we’ll die on this land and won’t get out. It’s our land, our father’s – so why should we leave?”

The Suleimans say their family has owned the East Jerusalem house since 1935, however, King claims the Palestinians are squatters. King also claims the Suleimans moved into the property in 2002 and insists a Jewish Israeli owns the house.

King’s group, the Israel Land Fund (ILA), has a history of vigilante Palestinian home evictions in East Jerusalem. The ILA believes these Palestinians are squatters and strives to remove them in order to construct an “eternal homeland” for “Jewish pioneers.”

King’s Israel Land Fund delivering eviction notices claiming the Palestinians are “illegally squatting on Jewish owned land in Anata, East Jerusalem,” 2007.

The ILA’s website states, “house by house, lot by lot, the Israel Land Fund is ensuring the land of Israel stays in the hands of the Jewish people forever.” The minimum amount to purchase a Jewish only lot with the ILA is $6,000.

About Allison Deger

Allison Deger is the Assistant Editor of Mondoweiss.net. Follow her on twitter at @allissoncd.

10 Responses

Lance, they are simply looking for some men who are stout-hearted men, who will fight for the rights they adore. Start them with ten who are stout-hearted men,
and they’ll soon give you ten thousand more. Shoulder to shoulder and bolder and bolder, they’ll grow as they go to the fore.
As you well know, Lance there’s nothing in the world can halt or mar a plan when stout-hearted men can stick together man to man.
And if you don’t believe me, ask Sigmund over there.

RE: “the right-wing leader, Aryeh King published an ad in a newspaper seeking ‘strong men [who] are wanted to legally evacuate Arab squatters.’ ” ~ Deger

MY QUESTION: Will the Be(i)tarim answer the call?

FROM WIKIPEDIA [Betar]:

(excerpt) The Betar Movement (בית”ר, also spelled Beitar) is a Revisionist Zionist youth movement founded in 1923 in Riga, Latvia, by Vladimir (Ze’ev) Jabotinsky. Betar has been traditionally linked to the original Herut and then Likud political parties of Israel, and was closely affiliated with the pre-Israel Revisionist Zionist splinter group Irgun Zevai Leumi. It was one of many movements and youth groups arising at that time out of a worldwide emergence of fascism.[1] Some of the most prominent politicians of Israel were Betarim in their youth, most notably Prime Ministers Yitzhak Shamir and Menachem Begin, the latter of whom idolized Jabotinsky.[2]…. . . The group initially praised Mussolini for his anti-communism and fascist principles, leading it to adopt the black uniform shirt of Italian fascism for a short period. Mussolini’s invasion of Abyssinia, however, was seen as “cowardly” by Betar and led them to break with him shortly after.[8]…

Hundreds of fans, mostly teenagers, descended on busy Malha Mall, jumping on tables, waving scarves, and chanting “Death to Arabs”.
When a group of fans started to heckle and spit on Palestinian women dining with their children in the food hall, the centre’s Arab cleaning staff rushed to their defence and chased the fans off. But moments later, the fans returned, and started to attack the Arab staff.
“They [the fans] caught some of them and beat the hell out of them,” Yair, the Jewish owner of a bakery in the shopping centre, told Israel’s Haaretz newspaper. “They hurled people into shops, and smashed them against shop windows. … One cleaner was attacked by some 20 people, poor guy.” The brawl might have turned deadly, but food hall staff refused to respond to fans’ demands for knives and sticks…

P.S. FROM TED RALL, 07/22/10: …Umberto Eco’s 1995 essay Eternal Fascism describes the cult of action for its own sake under fascist regimes and movements: “Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation.”…
SOURCE – link to commondreams.org

P.S. It appears to me that Israel/Zionism has come to resemble what Umberto Eco referred to as “fascist regimes and movements”, and consequently Zionism ascribes to the “cult of action for its own sake” (e.g. Israel’s settlement project in the West Bank, Israel’s determination to bomb Iran, etc).
SEE: Jerusalem Day celebrations PART1 : Provocations. (VIDEO, 03:49) – link to youtube.com

Ladies and gentlemen of the press corps, Madame First Lady, Mr. President, my name is Stephen Colbert, and tonight it is my privilege to celebrate this president, ‘cause we’re not so different, he and I. We both get it. Guys like us, we’re not some brainiacs on the nerd patrol. We’re not members of the factinista. We go straight from the gut. Right, sir?

That’s where the truth lies, right down here in the gut. Do you know you have more nerve endings in your gut than you have in your head? You can look it up. Now, I know some of you are going to say, “I did look it up, and that’s not true.” That’s ’cause you looked it up in a book. Next time, look it up in your gut. I did. My gut tells me that’s how our nervous system works.

Every night on my show, The Colbert Report, I speak straight from the gut, okay? I give people the truth, unfiltered by rational argument. I call it the “No Fact Zone.” FOX News, I hold a copyright on that term.

Mondoweiss in Your Inbox

Get Mondoweiss delivered directly to your inbox every morning and stay up to date with our independent coverage of events in the Middle East!

Support Mondoweiss’s independent journalism today

Mondoweiss brings you the news that no one else will. Your tax-deductible donation enables us to deliver information, analysis and voices stifled elsewhere. Please give now to maintain and grow this unique resource.